'Smallville' actor Allison Mack is released from prison a year early
‘Smallville’ actor Allison Mack is quietly released from prison a year early after being jailed for three years for brainwashing and recruiting sex slaves for NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere who is serving 120 years
- Allison Mack, 40, was released from federal prison near San Francisco this week
- Mack began serving a three year sentence for sex trafficking charges in 2021
‘Smallville’ actor Allison Mack, who pleaded guilty over her role in a sex-trafficking case tied to the cult group NXIVM, has been released from prison a year early.
Mack began serving a three-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, in September 2021 and was released on Monday, according to federal prison records.
Best known for her role as a young Superman’s close friend on Smallville, Mack, 40, pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges that she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for NXIVM leader Keith Raniere.
FCI Dublin is a low-security women’s prison perhaps most famous for holding actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman for their roles in a college admissions scandal.
Mack avoided a longer prison term by cooperating with federal authorities in their case against Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in prison after being convicted on sex-trafficking charges.
Allison Mack, 40, was released from FCI Dublin near San Francisco this week. Mack is pictured leaving federal court in Brooklyn, New York, in April 2019 after pleading guilty
Mack, who starred in the hit Superman origin series, was among the NXIVM leadership accused of running a sex trafficking ring
Mack admitted to helping Raniere create a secret society of brainwashed women who were branded with his initials (above)
Mack helped prosecutors mount evidence showing how Raniere created a secret society that included brainwashed women who were branded with his initials and forced to have sex with him.
In addition to Mack, members of the group included an heiress to the Seagram´s liquor fortune, Clare Bronfman, and a daughter of TV star Catherine Oxenberg of ‘Dynasty’.
Mack went on to attack the cult leader Raniere and expressed ‘remorse and guilt’ before her sentencing in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
Mack started acting and modeling at the age of four but landed her first acting gig on a TV show when she was 15 and in 2001 went on to play Chloe Sullivan, the best friend of a young Clark Kent, in Smallville.
The series ran from 2001 to 2011 and earned Mack two Teen Choice Awards and multiple TV award nominations. It was while Smallville was filming that Mack first attended a NXIVM meeting back in 2007.
She eventually moved to New York City when Smallville finished airing in 2011. Mack regularly attended NXIVM seminars and would often travel to Albany where Raniere lived.
In 2012, she chose to move to Albany to be closer to NXIVM and Raniere instead of pursuing an application to Yale Drama School.
Raniere had started NXIVM in the 1990s in Albany as a purported self-improvement group that then expanded across the country.
It first became known for its ‘Executive Success Program’ courses, which purported to give students the ability to achieve their goals in life by overcoming mental blocks.
Raniere started a secret branch, known as the DOS, in about 2015 that was just for women.
Raniere (pictured) was ultimately sentenced to 120 years in prison after being convicted on sex-trafficking charges
Raniere was arrested at a luxury villa in Mexico and sent back to the US in March 2018. He was sentenced last year to 120 years in prison for his conviction on sex-trafficking charges
Smallville actress Allison Mack (pictured following her 2021 prison sentence) had told reporter Vanessa Grigoriadis that she joined the NXIVM sex cult to be a star again
Mack, who was once part of Raniere’s inner circle, had provided information to prosecutors about how he encouraged ‘the use of demeaning and derogatory language, including racial slurs, to humiliate ‘slaves’. She also gave them a recording of a conversation (above) she had with Raniere about the branding, which was used to bolster their case against him
Mack, who joined NXIVM in 2006, was once part of Raniere’s inner circle. They are pictured together during a filmed interview for the group on his YouTube page
Prosecutors say the secret society was comprised of brainwashed female ‘slaves’ who were blackmailed into having sex with him, following dangerously restrictive diets and being branded with his initials.
Mack became a master, as well as Raniere’s slave, around 2016.
In her role in the cult, Mack admitted that at Raniere’s direction, she obtained compromising information and images of two unidentified women – called ‘collateral’ within the group – that she threatened to make public if they didn’t perform ‘so-called acts of love.’
Prosecutors also said Mack ordered victims ‘to perform labor, take nude photographs, and in some cases, to engage in sex acts with Raniere’.
As an investigation into NXIVM was underway in 2017, Raniere and Mack were among those who fled to Mexico to try to reconstitute the group there.
He was arrested at a luxury villa in Puerto Vallarta and sent back to the US in March 2018.
Mack was arrested a few days later in New York and charged with racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking and attempted sex trafficking.
After being released on bond, Mack was ordered to cut all communication with NXIVM members including her wife and fellow NXIVM member Nicki Clyne.
The pair married in 2017 but Mack filed for divorce in December last year.
It was previously reported that the pair wed at the behest of Raniere in an effort to allow Clyne, who is Canadian, to remain in the US.
Clyne was not charged in relation to the NXIVM case.
Mack provided prosecutors with an audio tape in which Raniere could be heard discussing a branding ceremony that was used to help bolster the case against the cult leader.
Mack (second from right) starred for years as Chloe Sullivan – the best friend of a young Clark Kent – in TV series Smallville
A transcript of the tape, which was included in a pre-sentencing court filing, featured Raniere and Mack discussing the brandings.
‘Do you think the person who’s being branded should be completely nude and sort of held to the table like a, sort of almost like a sacrifice? I don’t know if that, that’s a feeling of submission, you know,’ Raniere asked.
He also suggested filming the branding to be used as ‘collateral’ in a bid to stop women leaving the cult.
Raniere went on to describe how the woman should be in a ‘vulnerable position’ for the branding.
‘Laying on the back, legs slightly, or legs spread straight like, like feet, feet being held to the side of the table, hands probably above the head being held, almost like being tied down, like sacrificial, whatever,’ he said.
‘The person should ask to be branded. Should say, please brand me it would be an honor, or something like that. An honor I want to wear for the rest of my life, I don’t know.
‘And they should probably say that before they’re held down, so it doesn’t seem like they are being coerced.’
Prosecutors acknowledged the tape when they asked the judge to impose a reduced sentence on Mack.
Mack also asked for leniency when she wrote a letter to judge ahead of her sentencing in which she apologized for her role in NXIVM and said following Raniere was the biggest regret of her life.
She noted that she cooperated with prosecutors by providing the tape of Raniere talking about branding his recruits that helped convict him.
‘It is now of paramount importance for me to say, from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry,’ Mack said in her letter.
‘I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had. I believed, whole-heartedly, that his mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself. I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him.
Raniere started NXIVM in the 1990s in Albany, New York as a purported self-improvement group that then expanded across the country. The group first became known for its ‘Executive Success Program’ courses, which purported to give students the ability to achieve their goals in life by overcoming mental blocks
Mack and fellow NXIVM member Nicki Clyne married in 2017. Mack filed for divorce in December last year. It was previously reported that the pair wed at the behest of Raniere in an effort to allow Clyne, who is Canadian, to remain in the US. Clyne was not charged in relation to the NXIVM case
‘This was the biggest mistake and regret of my life.’
She also apologized to the victims she and Raneire lured into the sex cult, calling her former master a ‘twisted man.’
‘I am sorry to those of you that I brought into NXIVM,’ Mack wrote.
‘I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man. I am sorry that I encouraged you to use your resources to participate in something that was ultimately so ugly.
‘I do not take lightly the responsibility I have in the lives of those I love and I feel a heavy weight of guilt for having misused your trust, leading you down a negative path.’
India Oxenberg, the daughter of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg, claimed she was recruited by Mack in 2011 when she was 20 under the guise that it was a sexual liberation group.
Oxenberg, who was among those who testified during Raniere’s trial, claims Mack was her master after she joined and she was forced to hand over incriminating information about her relatives.
She has previously revealed that she was the first woman to be branded in January 2016 as two fellow cult members held her down by her hands and feet. Oxenberg also alleged she was raped by Raniere and groomed by him for years.
In a documentary about her involvement in the cult, Oxengberg said Mack would limit her calorie intake.
India Oxenberg (left), who is the daughter of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg (right) said she was recruited into the cult by Mack in 2011
Oxenberg (above with mom Catherine) said she has suffered panic attacks and nightmares in the lead-up to Mack’s sentencing while writing her victim impact statement
‘Allison said, I could only eat 500 calories or less per day. Before eating anything, I had to ask permission so, “Master may I please have 90 calories,”‘ she said.
‘It was supposed to be a practice in discipline and self-restraint.’
Ahead of her sentencing, Oxenberg revealed she had received a letter from Mack just days earlier where she dropped the cult persona, denounced leader Keith Raniere and admitted wrongdoing.
Oxenberg said, however, that Mack should still pay for what she did to her and that any reduced sentence was an insult to NXVIM victims.
‘Her worst quality is that she dehumanized people, she was inhumane. That’s hard to come back from,’ Oxenberg told ABC News.
Oxenberg said she was ‘surprised’ to receive a letter from Mack just days ago regarding her involvement in the cult.
She did not divulge the contents of the letter.
‘I was so surprised, I didn’t expect that. It was so sad because it was the first communication that I’ve seen from her that actually kind of felt like her,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t the cult persona. I felt sympathetic but it was also very clear to me that this was someone who really did struggle with empathy.
‘I do believe that she has been able to see that she did wrong and hurt people and that she has denounced Keith Raniere – that is what I prayed for.’
THE NXIVM MEMBERS CHARGED IN SEX CULT CASE
Clare Bronfman
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit identity theft
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Sentence: 81 months in prison and $500,000 fine
Keith Raniere
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit identity theft.
Plea: Not Guilty
Verdict: Guilty, all counts
Sentence: 120 years in prison
Allison Mack
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Sentence: Three years in prison
Kathy Russell
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Lauren Salzman
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Nancy Salzman
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy
Plea: Guilty
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